


Sleeping Beauty

by archaeologist_d



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boys Kissing, Canon Era, Canon Universe, Cracky, During Canon, Fae & Fairies, Fairies, Fairy Tale Curses, Humor, Kissing, M/M, Sleeping Beauty Elements, thorns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29289855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archaeologist_d/pseuds/archaeologist_d
Summary: Rescuing Arthur from the curse of eternal sleep should have been a piece of cake, but kissing him to break said curse? That was a step too far.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 152
Collections: Merlin Bingo





	Sleeping Beauty

A tangle of insurmountable thorny bushes surrounded the castle.

At least, this time it wasn’t an army of skeletons or wraiths or… whatever the bloody hell the enemies of Camelot were up to.

But it was bollocks.

Why couldn’t Merlin take off a few days to go visit his mum and come back to happy times, a festive holiday or maybe a melee where Arthur didn’t get stabbed?

It was buggering bollocks with a pointy hat on it.

It was Uther’s fault, of course. After all, he’d banned magic and destroyed so many in his wake that some of the magical community decided to take it out on Uther’s most precious treasure, his son. Like usual.

Sigh.

The problem was that the castle was now impenetrable, lots of interlinking branches so tightly woven together that nothing could get through. Not that people didn’t try. The knights back from patrol, mercenaries eager for gold coin, even some of the farmers hoping for largess tried to cut a path through the mess but in vain. The thorny boughs seemed indestructible, at least with sword and sinew, and more than a few of them had deep wounds from the barbs.

And of course, no one with magic would come forth to help. Why should they when their reward would be the pyre or the axe?

Merlin didn’t know what to do. Did he try and burn the branches and potentially everyone inside? Did he use poison to kill off the bushes and make the water sources under the castle useless? How about magic when no one was looking and pretend to be innocent if he got caught?

There was really only one choice.

But in the end, even with his powers, attacking the branches with magic proved useless. He needed his magic book and that was inside the castle. He needed Gaius and he was inside, too. After the fifth magical attempt failed, Merlin kicked at the boughs, the thorns imbedding themselves in his leather boots, the branches reaching out and snagging his second-best neckerchief. If he didn’t know better, he would think the vegetation was grabbing for him as if to impale him as a lesson to all those who would try and thwart their magical curse.

Giving up, he called Kilgharrah, hoping to hitch a ride into the courtyard. At night, of course, sneaky-like.

The tosser laughed at him. “Well, young warlock, I am not a horse. Have you tried crawling through the cavern under the castle? That should be accessible.”

“You want me to crawl through muck and all the shit you left behind when you escaped instead of flying me in?” Merlin just stared at the old bastard. It was unbelievable that Kilgharrah wouldn’t help him. “I thought you were my friend. Kin, you know. All that bollocks you kept telling me about whenever you wanted something.”

Kilgharrah fluttered those huge eyelashes at Merlin. There was even a breeze strong enough to push Merlin back a little from them. Finally, he said, “I think it would be good for you to learn a little of what I went through for all those years.”

Scowling at him, Merlin snarled out, “I could insist.”

“You could but who is to say how gently I’d land. After all, I am a thousand years old and pretty weak.” Kilgharrah gave out a little wheeze, then said, “Cough, cough.”

Merlin wasn’t putting up with it. “ _Drakon_ ….”

Lifting up his wings at that, Kilgharrah stomped his foot down hard, the ground shaking as he said, “Oops, sorry about that. Gotta run. Aithusa is causing havoc in Willowdale again and I’ve got babysitting duties. Or you could take care of him. It is your turn after all. He’s teething at the moment and a bit cranky. I’m sure with your excellent _parenting_ skills, you will be able to avoid the fire-breathing part when he burps and the enormous amount of poop he puts out on a daily basis. Be sure to muck out the cave while you’re there. It’s getting a bit rank and you often told me about how much you _love_ cleaning out the stables. Endlessly.”

Kilgharrah was going to make him take care of Aithusa? Unbelievable. “So, it’s either crawling through the caves or babysitting Aithusa?” Merlin shuddered at the thought. “Umm, okay, caves it is.”

Snickering a little, Kilgharrah said, “Good choice. Oh, and you might wash up a bit before kissing Arthur. I think he’s got a cleanliness kink.”

“What? I’m… kissing Arthur? What?” Merlin couldn’t wrap his head around it. Kissing Arthur? What did kissing Arthur have to do with anything and really was it possible that Merlin could actually get away with it without Arthur making him muck out the stables for a month after? “Come back here, you malevolent overgrown dickcissel.”

* * *

The caves were just as gross as Merlin had remembered. Twenty years of dragon excrement had solidified, but there were broken bones and rotted meat and a few dragon teeth scattered around. Never mind having to scamper through the freezing water at the bottom of the crevasse and climb up a rockface covered in mushrooms and a kind of glowy thing that squished when he pressed on it. Merlin was almost sorry that he hadn’t taken up the babysitting offer. Almost.

At least there weren’t any spiders.

By the time he got inside—and thankfully past the thorny bushes, it was getting close to midnight. The witching hour his mum used to say but Merlin had seen plenty of witches in his time and most of them were just trying to live their own lives and avoid Uther’s purge.

He was tired but ran up the steps to see what happened to Gaius. On the way, he figured out what had happened and why no one had tried to leave.

Everyone was asleep. Again.

Great.

At least, Merlin hoped this time that he wasn’t going to fall under the spell. And hopefully not have to kill anyone. The last two times didn’t end well for the casters and Merlin was getting pretty unhappy about murdering magic users just because they had a problem with Uther.

Hell, he had a problem with Uther.

Anyway, Gaius was asleep, his cheek resting on one of his precious books. So, no help there. After a while, he realised that his own magic book wasn’t going to do the trick, either.

The idea of going to the library and trying to find the answer there seemed overwhelming. Besides, Merlin was getting sleepy. It didn’t feel like a spell, more like it was midnight and he had had a really rough day.

Still, he decided to move a bit, maybe wake up with a little exercise, maybe see where Arthur was at least and make sure no one had tried to kill him in the interim.

What he didn’t expect when he entered Arthur’s chambers were six fairies flitting around Arthur’s head, petting his hair, giggling whenever Arthur started snoring, and having a little picnic on his pillow. Tiny teacups and the smallest of cucumber sandwiches, scones and clotted crème and cake, and didn’t that remind Merlin that he hadn’t had supper yet. His stomach grumbled at the sight.

Slamming the door, glaring at the group, Merlin yelled, “What the hell is this?”

The fairy in purple, a lovely shade by the way, floated over to him, flitting around his head, and then settling down on his shoulder. He tried to swat her off, but she just laughed. “Oh, my, aren’t you a handsome fellow. Would you like some cake?”

“What are you doing here?” Merlin wanted answers and he wanted them now.

With a little hmmm, she flew up, hovering in front of Merlin’s face. “No cake, then.” She pouted a second, then said, “We are fairies of the Fair Isle, come to protect the Once and Future King from the curse. Do you like my dress?”

It took a second to process it all, but Merlin knew fairies could be tricky when crossed. He cleared his throat and smiled, “It’s lovely. It suits you very well.” He looked past her, taking in the others. “So, curse? You know about the curse?”

Greenie, the one in the green dress—hey, Merlin couldn’t be inventive right now, he had a crisis on his hands, gave a tinkling kind of laugh, then rose up, hovering next to her sister. “Surely Gaius told you about it. He was there when we gave Arthur our gifts.”

When Gaius woke up, Merlin was going to have words with that hoary old goat. He was bloody tired of finding out things after the fact.

Smiling sweetly, Merlin fluttered his eyelashes at Greenie. “Gaius may have told it to me a while ago, but what with all the goings-on at the castle, he only gave me the smallest of details. I would love to hear the full story. I’m sure you would tell it beautifully.” 

Goldie flew over, then the rest of them followed, hovering around Merlin’s head, White and Purple settling in his hair—it felt like they were starting to braid it, the blue one nestled in Merlin’s kerchief.

They were all talking at once, words like curse and kissing and true love all mixed up with birth and babies and cradles and spindles. Blue, Greenie, and Pink were arguing with each other, talking about their gifts to the baby and which one was more important. Fighting skill, beauty, singing ability, grace, kindness, wit. At some point, Merlin had to wonder if they were talking about some other baby because while Arthur was beautiful—oh, gods above was he ever, he wasn’t always kind and as for singing ability, if Arthur hit one note in ten correctly, it was a good day.

Finally, Merlin had had enough. “My ladies, please. While I am certain that all of your gifts were of the highest quality and generously bestowed, what about the curse?”

As luck would have it, Arthur turned over and started snoring. Like a pig. Merlin sighed, “Or is his snoring the curse?”

Goldie giggled, then gesturing for Merlin to sit on the bed next to Arthur. When he settled down, the other fairies around him, Goldie served him tea in the tiniest teacup Merlin had ever seen, she said, “Nimeuh was the greatest of us.”

Starting at her name, Merlin said carefully, “Nimeuh was a fairy?”

They all seemed to titter at that. Blue said, “Oh, no, she was the high priestess of the Fair Isle, but she was our sister as much as any of the fair folk.” Taking a sip of her tea, Blue said, “But when the Pendragon babe was born, Uther’s heart turned to stone and Nimueh’s did, too.”

Goldie sighed. “Not without cause but to blame the babe for his father’s sins wasn’t right.”

“She cursed him?” Merlin said.

“The day of his birth, we of the Fair Isle bestowed our gifts. We knew he would grow to power and fortune, but he would need kindness, too, and our other gifts to balance out his life.” Pink sighed. “But Nimueh was late with hers and by then Arthur’s mother had died and Uther grew mad with grief.”

Greenie said, “Nimueh had just cause to curse Uther, but never the babe.”

“And what was the curse?” Merlin said, hoping to find out just what it was so he could stop it before it was too late.

“For Arthur to prick his finger on a spindle and die that night,” White said, wiping a tear from her tiny eye.

“Arthur would never go near a spindle. I honestly don’t think he knows what it is,” Merlin said, thinking about it all. “And now that I think about it, I don’t remember seeing any spinning wheels in Camelot. Which is odd.”

“Uther had them burned along with those of magic, a great conflagration,” Goldie sighed. “A terrible loss.”

“But Arthur isn’t dead,” Merlin pointed out, grimacing as Arthur let out another loud snore before settling back down into mumbles. “Is he going to die?”

Blue shrugged, then alighted next to Merlin’s ear. She whispered, “We all die in the end, Emrys, well except…”

The others hushed her up. She let out a little harrumph, then flew over to Arthur’s pillow and began petting his hair.

Pink rolled her eyes. “Blæhæwna should keep her mouth shut about such things. And no, Arthur was destined to die but we took care of it, didn’t we, girls?”

There was a chorus of agreement. “We changed it from death to endless sleep. Which, if I do say so myself, was pretty clever,” Pink said, looking quite smug about it.

“Endless sleep? How is that better than death? If he doesn’t wake up, he’ll die anyway and that’s just… arghh.” Merlin threw his arms up in frustration, startling the fairies who flew around his head in annoyance, well except for Blue who was still stroking Arthur’s hair. Which on the face of it was kind of creepy but whatever.

Finally, Goldie floated in front of Merlin’s nose, her hands on her hips, glaring at him a long, long moment before saying, “Sometimes I wonder about you. They say you are clever, but I’ve seen no sign of it.” When Merlin started to object, she ignored him and said, “Merlin, the Once and Future King must be woken by a kiss, from someone who truly loves him more than life itself. Only then will he wake.”

Merlin was frantic, trying to think of who loved Arthur so much that they would save the prat from it all. Gwen was asleep, Uther might love his son, but he’d shown that he put power and Camelot and his own secrets above Arthur, Morgana was still trying to kill him, and well, Arthur didn’t have any lovers as far as Merlin knew.

Goldie started laughing. “You truly are an idiot.” The others giggled, too, whispering to each other, pointing to Merlin and shaking their heads.

At this point, Merlin was getting a little miffed. These fairies weren’t much better than Kilgharrah when it came to just telling him instead of making him guess. But at last, Greenie rolled her eyes and said, “You, you idiot. You kiss Arthur and he’ll wake up.”

“Oh, I… really?” Merlin wasn’t sure that was true. After all, Arthur was always yelling at Merlin and throwing things. That didn’t really show a great deal of love, did it? Never mind that Merlin did love Arthur more than life itself, but that wasn’t enough, or so Merlin thought.

Well, he’d better get on with it before the fairies decided to make trouble or eat more cake. Gathering up his courage, he slid over, pulling Arthur onto his back, then hovered over him a moment. At least Blue had flown away.

Arthur let out a snore, then mumbled something about idiots and armour, before settling down.

Letting out a sigh, wetting his lips a little in worry, Merlin leaned in and moved his mouth over Arthur’s, then figuring he was in for a penny, he might as well be in for a pound, and started kissing Arthur for real, enjoying those warm lips, sliding his tongue over and into Arthur’s mouth, framing Arthur’s face with his hands to keep him from moving away.

At first, nothing happened, then Arthur started kissing back, growing more and more eager as he began to moan out his pleasure.

In the next instant, Merlin was thrown back, landing hard at the bottom of the bed. With a squeak, the fairies all disappeared, except for Blue who lingered just a little before winking out with the rest.

In the distance, out in the courtyard, there was a faint cheer. It must have worked. The curse must have lifted. At least that was the good news. 

Arthur, on the other hand, was yelling. Loudly. “Just what the hell were you doing?”

Merlin had been enjoying it up to that point. Now he yelled back, “Saving you from eternal sleep, you arse.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Hang on, you were kissing me.”

While Merlin would have very much liked to have gone on with the kissing part, insulting Arthur was his second-best thing to do. “Well, glad to see that your observation skills are still intact.” Merlin slid off the bed, then stood there, hands on hips, staring at the prat.

“Why were you kissing me?” Arthur glared at him, looking thoroughly put out, his mouth open, his lips still wet from the kisses. Merlin thought it was a good look, Arthur’s mouth reddened from Merlin’s explorations. He would have liked to have explored some more, but that was highly unlikely now. Merlin would be lucky not to be mucking out the stables and the cesspit and the midden for the rest of the year and maybe permanently.

Arthur wasn’t done yelling. “And kissing me while I’m asleep is really creepy, Merlin.”

Waving his arms around like a mad thing because sometimes that was the only way to keep from throttling the prat, Merlin shouted, “You were cursed. The only way to break the curse was for someone to kiss you and since everyone else in the castle was asleep, I was the logical choice. I could have tried to find a rat that was still awake and have him kiss you.” He stopped a minute, then looking at Arthur’s astonished face, Merlin said, smirking a little, “Although he might have chewed off your face instead. Which could improve your looks a bit, now that I think of it. Shall I go find one, Sire?” Merlin took a step backwards toward the door as if really about to look for a rat.

Straightening the bedclothes around his lap, sniffing a little as he did so, Arthur said, “You talk utter rubbish. And what smells so badly?”

“I had to crawl through the cess pits to get past the thorns.” Merlin held out one arm as if he were about to let Arthur sniff the full extent of Merlin’s fetid journey.

“Now I know you’ve been at the tavern again. Making up stories won’t get you out of stable mucking.” Arthur pointed one finger at him, waggling it a little.

Merlin rolled his eyes and was about to start insulting the wanker again when Sir Leon barged into the room. ‘Sire, are you alright? The bushes have finally disappeared, and my men are checking everyone now. We had feared the worst.”

“What are you talking about?” At least Arthur didn’t yell at Leon, but he did frown at him.

Sir Leon straightened, letting out a long breath as if girding himself for a council report. Merlin hoped not. He liked Sir Leon, but he could be incredibly boring at times.

Bowing his head a moment, Sir Leon said, “Sire, the castle was surrounded by thorny bushes that no one could get past. From the little we could see through the branches, everyone inside had fallen asleep. Camelot was cursed, Sire, but somehow the curse has been broken and everything is back to normal.” Leon looked relieved. “With your permission, I will continue to check to make sure everyone is well. I am relieved to see that Merlin is here, to take care of all your needs, my lord.”

Oh, the scowl Arthur sent Merlin would have killed lesser men. But Merlin was used to it. He grinned back at Arthur and fluttered his eyelashes a bit for effect.

Sir Leon was a smart man. He beat a hasty retreat and left them alone.

For a long, long time, Arthur didn’t say anything. Finally, he cleared his throat, and still scowling at Merlin, he said, “Well, next time, clean up before you kiss me. Your stench is overwhelming even from here.”

Wait, what did Arthur just say? Did Merlin hear him right? But he wasn’t going to push it, at least not then. Merlin really did reek.

“Right you are, Sire. Clean up before kissing. Got it.” Merlin’s grin grew wider. “I’ve heard you have a cleanliness kink anyway. Next time, shall I bring two bathtubs?”

Sputtering, as Arthur’s face turned a lovely shade of pink, he spat out, “One bathtub, you idiot. Why would I need two?”

Merlin’s grin turned predatory. “Why indeed?”

Then ducking the goblet thrown at his head, Merlin ran out the door, snickering as he did.

As he strolled down the hallway, Merlin knew that he would have to clean up. He wasn’t about to fall asleep on his relatively clean bed with clothes fit for the sewer, but more importantly, tomorrow was a new day.

And Arthur would want a bath.

And so did Merlin.

With Arthur.

It would be a new day indeed.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Notes:** hints of Sleeping Beauty fairy-tales (not necessarily Disney’s version) but twisted. Thanks so much to gilli_ann for the Sleeping Beauty suggestions.   
> **Disclaimer:** Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.


End file.
